Plus more reason, when news reached Williamsport, Pa., of Pedro Martinez’s signing with the Phillies, for Mussina to ignore The Itch, provided he had ever had one.

“It would take me a month easy to be even close to being ready,” he said. “And I don’t know what ready would be for me. When you haven’t pitched at full speed for eight months, full speed might be 78 miles an hour.”

So scratch this full-time Little League coach off the list as a possible reinforcement to the Yankees rotation. That’s presuming the Yankees, reluctant to set up the Blue Jays for the next five years by emptying their farm system and bullpen (Phil Hughes) in a deal for Roy Halladay, even have such a list.

No question, general manager Brian Cashman has to be looking for a No. 3 starter. After all, Sergio Mitre pitches tomorrow night. And of course, it would be terrific to have a Game 3 starter capable of doing what CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett could do in Games 1 and 2.

But for a team that leads the American League in runs scored, that trails the Red Sox by a game in the AL East, and that has a four-game loss-column cushion for the wild card, the necessity for another starter comes down to whether Joba Chamberlain can work into seventh innings.

The one that cranked it up to the consistent mid-90s did that in a breeze. Chamberlain, who threw a 97-mph, fist-pump-drawing, 3-2 fastball past Marcus Thames to end what had been a first-and-third, one-out threat in the fifth, had struck out five of the last six batters when manager Joe Girardi wanted Phil Coke against left-handed-hitting Curtis Granderson.

The fans, booing Girardi, didn’t settle for a concession that 107 pitches for 20 outs surely beat 86 for 11 outs and 94 pitches for 13 outs in Chamberlain’s previous two starts.

Chamberlain wasn’t just better in yesterday’s 2-1 win, but electric like he hasn’t been since fleeting early-season starts.

“Sometimes you fall into what other people expect,” he said. “Going out and throwing sinkers, that’s not who I am.

“I got back to being aggressive and having the swagger that got me here. We all need reminders, and being kept busy with a 3-year-old [son] in the [Lincoln, Neb.] backyard, not thinking about baseball for four days, gave that to me.

“I wasn’t being aggressive enough with my fastball early in games, which allows your other stuff later in the game to be better.”

Chamberlain starts, rather than relieves, because he has a four-pitch repertoire. He also has little experience in how to use it.

“People forget he had about 150 innings in the minor leagues,” Girardi said. “Thirty-plus starts in the big leagues is not a lot of pitching.”

Because of Chien-Ming Wang’s woes, Andy Pettitte’s age and Chamberlain being just good enough to be disappointing, too much of the pitching the Yankees have been getting has been from their bullpen. Cashman is not putting Hughes, who made his 13th straight scoreless appearance yesterday, into a trade for Halladay or into the rotation. So if that’s a burden on young Chamberlain, reality says the Yankees need the unburdened one.

Easier said than done. Still, as Chamberlain reminded himself, he can make it look so simple.